Arvind Kejriwal to take oath as Delhi CM at Ramlila Maidan on Dec 26

New Delhi: Delhi Municipal Corporation North (MCD North Delhi) on Monday confirmed that Lt Governor Najeeb Jung has booked sprawling Ramlila Maidan for the oath-taking ceremony of AAP founder leader Arvind Kejriwal as the Delhi Chief Minister on December 26.

Kejriwal had earlier today announced that his party would form a government with Congress backing to end a fortnight-long deadlock.

The 45-year-old Ramon Magsaysay award winner met the Lt Governor and staked his claim to assume office. Without specifying a date, he had said he and his ministers would take oath at Ramlila Maidan.

The Ramlila ground is where Gandhian Anna Hazare`s 12-day fast in 2011 for a Jan Lokpal triggered mass solidarity protests across India. Kejriwal and Hazare were together then but have since fallen out.

The Lt Governor had invited the AAP to try form a government after the Bharatiya Janata Party, which finished with 31 seats, declined to do so as it lacked majority support.
The Congress, in order to slight the BJP, announced that its eight legislators would prop up the AAP. The AAP decided to seek people`s views on whether or not it should take support from the Congress.

That led to a five-day referendum where people were asked to say `yes` or `no`. On Monday, Kejriwal announced that an overwhelming majority had given their thumbs up to an AAP government.
An engineer by training and a former Indian Revenue Service officer whose social activism won him the Ramon Magsaysay award, Kejriwal didn`t say who will be the new chief minister.

But party leader Manish Sisodia declared that the top post would go to Kejriwal, who led the one-year-old AAP to a dream debut in the election in which the Congress was routed.